Dental materials such as for example, dental filling materials, often include liquid polymerizable organic monomers and/or polymers, reactive diluents, polymerization initiators, stabilizers, and fillers. Such composite materials have their good mechanical properties such as high flexural strengths, high compressive strengths and hardness. Further, they are often polishable and readily accept suitable dyes. The most frequently used monomers are esters of methacrylates and higher multifunctional alcohols or isocyanates such as the bismethacrylate of biphenol-A diglycidyl ether, urethane bismethacrylates. Aromatic diols are often used to make polymerizable resins having good thermal and mechanical stability.
Bisphenol A (2,2-bis(4-hydroxyphenyl)propane, BPA) in particular is one such aromatic diol that has been widely used in epoxy resin, modified methacrylate resin, polyethersulfone/ketone, polyester, polycarbonate and the like, for use in dental materials. Resins or polymers from fully aliphatic diols are less popular due to their relative lower thermal stability. However, there have been investigations of resins and polymers based on cyclic aliphatic compounds, especially those that are multi-cyclic. Interest in such cyclic aliphatic diols has increased due to potential concerns of some aromatic diol, especially BPA. Accordingly, BPA-free resins or polymers would be highly desirable if they possessed the same or comparable thermal and mechanical stabilities as the BPA counterparts.